Hipsterlandia

Unnecessary long beards? Check. Indie shops? Literally everywhere. Volkswagen vans? Of course. Extremely random clothes? Absolutely yes. Welcome to Melbourne.

This blog post could stop here since it’s a pretty accurate description of what I’ve seen around Melbourne for the time I was there. But that’s not it, because there is much more than just the hipstery brunch places and fashion stores.

There is, for instance, the stunning Queen Victoria Market. And I am not saying that it is great because of the building itself or the little shops, but because of the food that is sold inside. It’s a giant Gastronomia!! You can literally walk inside at breakfast time and buy anything you need. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and as such you should not skip it. There’s no such risk in QVM. Just get in, buy olives, bagels and cheese, ham, anchovies, artichokes, croissant, coffee (and beer) and get your day started right.

I am so untrendy that I am still using the moka I stole from my sister to make coffee instead of this.

Fully loaded up, we started the sightseeing downtown. There’s a huge secret that you need to know if you want to visit the narrow lanes of downtown Melbourne and not miss any of the cool spots.

Step1: learn Korean (or have with you someone who speaks it already)

Step2: find a Korean travel book guide

Step3: follow the itinerary reported on the book.

Or just walk around if it’s simpler. Well, it’s still a secret. In a way.

A witch hat building. Also know as the Arts Centre Melbourne

The National Gallery of Victoria has a really entertaining entrance

Like Sydney, Melbourne also has some very nice shopping malls, like the Royal Arcade, where Gog and Magog giants live.

One of the famous Melbourne trams. This guy tried to stop the tram in a random spot and started cursing when the tram didn’t stop. Mmmh

At sunset, we roamed a bit around the graffiti streets near Federation Square, such as Hosier lane. These streets would put to shame any other street with graffiti since they are completely covered from head to toe (or roof to basement? I don’t really know) with paint.

The first day is almost over, there’s just some more time to check out chinatown (more like asiatown) and eat something.

It may seem like a super packed first day, but everything is so incredibly near if you are in the central area and the trams are free if you don’t get out of the free tram zone. That’s quite amazing and I haven’t seen that kind of service very often.

The second day started off with a visit to the Shrine of Remembrance and to the botanical gardens, before heading back to the city center to check out the State Library of Victoria.

Yeah ok we get it, Melbourne is beautiful and all, but you promised us we would see something that looks like Hipsterlandia (which means Hipsterland but in a better language, Italian).

Wait no more, my dear readers, because I present to you Fitzroy, the craziest side of town. There’s no need for words for what’s next, just sit back, play Bon Iver and enjoy the awesomeness/craziness.

Fitzroy is definitely my favorite part of town, where everything is just so damn interesting and special. But the day was over and, after an extremely light dinner based on pizza and greek souvlaki, we headed home.

Important note, especially to my Italian friends: no, I did not eat a pineapple pizza for obvious reasons. First reason being that I am not mental.

The next day there was the trip to the Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles (I’d call it GOR but I deal with too many TLAs at work already). Pretty excited about this one as it was supposed to be the trip that showed us Australia beautiful nature, including wildlife. The trip didn’t start in the best way though. I guess that had to do with the fact that the driver yelled at us for no reason before starting the drive.

There was some pretty gloomy weather at first, but then the sky assisted us.

I was a little skeptical of the tour we took to visit the GOR, since I usually prefer to make my own itinerary, but the experience turned out to be worthy of the price paid for the package. The whole drive along the coast was just sublime.

Unfortunately, the last day of vacation was looming over us.

After starting the day off with a nice brunch at Grub Food Van, we headed to Brighton Beach to take a look at the Instagram friendly Bathing Boxes.

Before getting to the airport, we still had some time to have a look at St. Kilda and its famous Luna Park. By the way, if you want to buy a villa St. Kilda is not too bad of a location.